I personally use Steinberg Clean software Version 4. The expensive version (about£60) comes with a pre amp which boosts the signal 'cause the two phono (red and white)from the record deck is attached to the pre amp which in turn is plugged into the line in on your soundcard. The pre amp is powered either from the gameport or an USB input. The good thing with Clean Version 4 is that it has a fully automated IntelliCleaner which will remove any clicks caused by dust and scratches etc. It also comes with Wavelab Lite where you can monitor your recording to make sure it doesn't go over 0Db. You can then either burn a CD of your vinyl or convert the wave file into MP3 using something like Music Match or EAC software.

If your record player has a line-out socket, or if it's connected to an amplifier that has a line-out socket (more likely), connect that line-out socket to the line-in socket on your PC's sound card. If you haven't got line-out sockets, you can use a headphone socket instead, and connect that the the PC's line-in.

Then its all down to the software: I use SoundO'le (or something like that), which came with my Soundblaster sound card, to record the tracks onto my PC. You can do them one track at a time, or you can record a whole side at a time and then use LPRipper or something like that to split it into separate tracks.

Those are the basics. I'm sure that others will give you more ideas of specific software etc.

You would need to play it in real time through your soundcard and save to the hard disk. I use LP Recorder and LP Ripper to do this, from click here It is then saved as a .wav file. I use WisMP3 to convert it to MP3 which was free on a magazine cover disk a long time ago, (I mean a long time ago, I think I have had it about 4 years now) I think the Magazine was PC Utilities, might be worth checking their website to see if it is still available. If it isn't type WIS Technologies into Google.